Felipe and Janie Hilburn look over an album filled with pictures of their meeting with the Juan Juarez family in New Paris, Ind. Janie had never seen her father and went there recently to meet him.

"I've got tons of cousins and brothers and aunts and uncles. But on her side," he said, looking across the table at his wife, Janie, "she only had her mom and two sisters and a few nieces."

He so longed to change that unbalanced equation that he looked for 15 years for a father she had never seen.

They knew his name was Juan Juarez and that he came from Mexico as an 18-year-old migrant worker a year or so after World War II ended in 1945.

Janie has been told by her mother that her father was a good man. The couple had met in Missouri and moved to Indiana to work, then married in about 1949 when she was 15 and he was 21.

But in the gathering storm of a kind of Shakespearian tragedy, a rival began seeking the attention of the bride, even though he was rebuffed.

"There was this other man who had been working with them who was interested in Mother," Janie said. "I guess he got mad because Mom wouldn't pay any attention to him. So, he falsely told my uncle that my father was abusing her."

The family took precipitate action based on that misinformation.

"When my grandmother heard it, they just picked my mother up and moved her back to Texas."

Janie was born three months later in Seguin, near San Antonio. Her parents' marriage had been brought to an end by a vindictive fabrication that neither had been aware of.

"Over the years I used the Internet quite a bit," Felipe said. "Each year - usually during the winter months - we would spend some time going through there, just punching up her father's name to see how many results there would be. For four or five days we would call a few names and come up empty-handed.

"Basically, we just wanted to know who he was, and we didn't figure to find him alive."

He said, "This last time, back in January, I started again, and went to Mahon Library. They have a genealogy department there, so I thought, I'm going to ask for help instead of trying to do it on my own.' "

Felipe said he was helped in the search by Roger Ward, who volunteers in the department.

"He pulled up about 100 names, and we were scrolling down through there, when he said, Here's one that has the middle initial of C.'

"Mexican people usually use their mother's maiden name as their middle initial," Felipe explained.

"We found a Juan Juarez who was up in Indiana, and the age looked about right. He had a phone number for him - his address and phone number. I hesitated about calling because I have done this so many times, and no results.

"We sat there and talked a little bit, and finally I said I would go ahead and try it. This lady picked up and I told her I was looking for Juan Juarez. And she said, Yes, he lives here.' And I said Is his middle initial C for Chaves?' She said, Yes.' And I asked her another question, Was his parents' names Dario Juarez?' She said Yes.'

"I wanted to keep on going, but I knew she was probably wondering who in the heck was asking all these questions. So, I said, OK, I think he might be my wife's father.' "

He had been talking to Diana Mathewson of Elkhart, Ind., Janie's half-sister, who happened to be visiting her parents' home in New Paris.

Janie said, "I called them that evening and talked to her for a while. I was still thinking, it's probably not true, but she kept saying, Yeah, I believe it is true.' It was very exciting."

After the call, the Hilburns began planning a trip to New Paris to see her father.

Mathewson said in a phone interview that her own mother had once told her in confidence that her father had been married previously for a short time.

Juan Juarez had eventually remarried after it became evident there would be no way to ever find his wife, Janie's mother. And her mother never understood why she was taken away until a relative who witnessed the incident revealed it at a family party that Janie gave for her mother's 70th birthday about three years ago in Lubbock.

Mathewson said of her father's grief, "It was a hard thing for him to go through, and I think he just tried to put it away. I think he knew there was a child, but at the same time, I don't think he had any way of finding her. He probably didn't speak a lot of English at the time.

"My father, up until a month ago, had no idea all these years why - just out of the blue - his wife was taken away, and he was never given an explanation. I'm sure his heart was torn. Then he met and fell in love with my mom, and realized, She is not going to leave me.' I think he was never going to let her out of his sight."

Her father had been a truck driver for most of his career before retirement. He drove coast to coast, and north to south. Ironically, his route had taken him often within two miles of the home of his daughter while passing through Lubbock.

When she recently told her father that's where his daughter lives, she remembers he said, "I know exactly where that is - I've passed by there so many times."

The Hilburns also were close in the 1970s when they were visiting one of Felipe's sisters who lived about 40 miles from New Paris.

"At the time we were so close and didn't even know it," he said.

Mathewson described the meeting of a new sister in April as wonderful. "Ever since they first contacted us, I was either talking to Janie on the phone or sending a lot of e-mails. It was like I knew her already, I just didn't get to see her face.

"It was such a wonderful day," she said of the first time she met her sister. "It was just something that I don't think I will ever forget. When they first came to town, I met them, and they followed me up to my parents' home."

The entire family of brothers, sisters, nieces and nephews was gathered, waiting for them to come - and her father also.

"He came outside, and right away walked right up to Janie and told her ... I think his first words were, Welcome home.'

"It was a very tearful moment."

Janie recalls, "I think I said, Is it really you?'

"They were very accepting and very gracious. I think we are going down again in August, because he wants to see our kids."

She had always wanted a brother, and now she has five of them plus two new sisters.

According to Mathewson, the family considers Janie to be their own. "We tried to pack as much family time into their visit as we could, but when it was time for them to leave, all we could think was, when are we going to see each other again?"

After 15 years of searching, the Hilburn's family tree has suddenly become filled with branches on all sides.